Apr 12, 2024 | Eshel in the News
When their baby is born, most parents have dreams about how that new life will unfold. Those dreams are unrealistic — by definition, because they’re dreams — but they usually involve the glorious mastering of unavoidable conventions on the way to some high-level prize. If you’re part of a tight community — if, say, you [more]
Nov 13, 2019 | Eshel Out Loud
(This speech was given Miryam Kabakov, Executive Director of Eshel, at the panel discussion entitled " Bridging the Divides, Fostering Inclusivity: Rabbinic, Psychoanalytic and Academic Perspectives on Traditional Judaism and Contemporary Gender/Sex Identities," which was held at the Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York, November 11, 2019.) This Shabbat we read the Parsha where Avraham [more]
Oct 25, 2019 | Eshel in the News
According to Miryam Kabakov, executive director of ten-year-old Orthodox LGBTQ+ organization Eshel, the Orthodox community has become exceedingly more open over the past decade. “When we started,” she says, “Orthodox communities were not really addressing LGBTQ inclusion as something they needed to do.” Now, Eshel’s Welcoming Shuls project reports that over 140 Orthodox synagogues across North America are [more]
Feb 28, 2019 | Eshel in the News
by Victoria Brown Published in the Baltimore Jewish Times on February 27, 2019 Mindy Sager Dickler’s guiding philosophy is ahavas Yisrael, love for fellow Jews. “There’s no exceptions. We have a responsibility to love one another and not to judge one another. Those should be overriding principles,” said Dickler, president and co-founder of JPride [more]
Apr 4, 2017 | Eshel Out Loud
A halachic approach to the inclusion of same-sex couples in Orthodox communities by Rabbi Dr. Zev Farber Orthodox Jewish homosexuals in committed relationships who wish to remain part of the community are often stuck having to leave the latter or hide the former. Many Orthodox communities are in a similar quandary, wishing to be [more]